Wow, you look great today! Now please give me your money

Well Internet, I am sick again for the FOURTH time in THREE months. Would these be drastic times? Because I see a need for drastic measures in the near future. I think I need to date a doctor. Or maybe a shaman. But I think the chances of me finding a nice Jewish shaman are slim to none.

I KNOW it's because I work with kids, kids who, although very, very cute, are apparently nothing more than festering vessels of germs and bacteria and, yes, snot (that's a medical term, do keep up). And I KNOW that when the kindergartner with the 512 degree fever starts crying and shivering, you're supposed to just stand 50 feet away and yell to them that their mom is on her way, while spraying them mace style with the Lysol. How do I end up every single time? With my arm around them, holding cool paper towels to their forehead while they rub tears and snot into my shirt and cough almost directly into my mouth. Whatever. Sooner or later I will become immune to every cold that's ever roamed the earth and who will be laughing then?

But that is not the point of this post. Once, every 17 years or so, I take a break from whining about my own minor and largely insignificant problems and support a cause that actually matters. This Sunday, I will be participating in the 19th Annual MS (Multiple Sclerosis) Walk. This is important for you to know for three reasons:
1. I am waking up early on a Sunday morning and doing a physical activity (and while getting up at 11 and sitting on a bench at the dog park drinking a latte-my usual Sunday morning ritual- requires me to PHYSICALLY get out of bed and get to that bench, it's not too active)
2. I'm doing this because one of my favorite people in the world was diagnosed with MS last spring (more on that later) and I think that sucks.
3. I'm about to ask you for money.

This disease is scary because it a.) affects the brain and nervous system b.) there's no cure c.) it's unpredictable, and we know embarrassingly little about it. When my friend (who I was going to mention by name and link to her blog, but she's not online and maybe she doesn't want me blasting her personal business all over the world) was diagnosed about two months before we graduated from college, she thought that she had a pinched nerve in her arm or just some strange malady that would clear up on it's own. She had to put her life on hold to deal with this, postponing her move to Israel (she's studying to be a rabbi) for a year. She's going to go on to do amazing things with her life and impact many, many people, and my wish for her is that we find a cure for this thing so that she can go do those amazing things and help those people without having to worry about an MS flare-up.

So now is when I guilt you into giving me your money. This is hard because I hate asking friends to give me cash (I was the lame girl scout who sent her cookie order form with her father to work so he could sell them for her), especially when most of my friends are just starting out in their jobs and disposable income is not readily available. But when I say that I'd appreciate ANY amount that you can give, I mean it. While large donations are great and will help me reach my goal faster, I'd really love to have a lot of people giving whatever they can spare, even if you think it's a small amount. The woman that I'm doing this in honor of is ridiculously self-less (the summer after I graduated from high-school I whined and complained because I had painted the windows of Big Red to celebrate, but since I left it on too long, it baked in the 890 degree weather and I couldn't get the "Hell yeah, Class of 2001!"'s off my car. One day while I was at work she went out in the sweltering heat during her break and scraped it all off for me. If you're not impressed by this, clearly you've never been to D.C. in August) and I'd love for her to be able to see a list of people who don't even know her acting in an equally self-less way.

SO PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GO TO MY PERSONAL PAGE HERE AND DONATE WHATEVER YOU CAN. It's super fast and easy to do and I will appreciate it forever and ever and when you're super successful and famous (and I don't know how you won't be, as you are so gorgeous and thin and talented and have a sparkling personality*) and I am asked to comment about you on a "Before They Were Stars" type show, I will speak of you favorably.





*The best part of my sucking-up is the subtlety, yes?